by MARITES CARINO

If you're familiar with the Montreal dance scene, you've no doubt come across Dave St-Pierre the dancer. With his lightning moves and agile steps, he's made a name for himself over the years as an interpreter with Brouhaha Danse, Daniel Léveillé and Jean-Pierre Perreault, to name a few. Keep your eyes peeled for Dave St-Pierre the choreographer.

He started the year off with a bang and caused a ruckus at Tangente with his controversial choreography, Le No Man's Land Show, which he views as one of his best works. The 40-minute piece examines the dark side of the human condition with blips of humour as well as on- and off-stage nudity and flashes of erotic acts. The spectacle elicited two hate letters from spectators. "They said that we just shouldn't show things like that," remembers St-Pierre.

This fall the piece got European producers buzzing, the Germans in particular, when it was remounted during the Festival International de Nouvelle Danse. He's since been invited to present his newest creation, La Pornographie des âmes, at Dance 2004 in Munich. "Things are still up in the air," St-Pierre says, but if things go his way, he could be making his mark as a choreographer internationally in the coming year. Just in case, he's hired an agent.

St-Pierre says that his new work "shows what human beings are, but don't want to show." Watch for it in April at Tangente when he'll be working on the piece with his dancers during the day and sharing his creation process nightly with the public.

If there's one thing this guy loves to do, it's to provoke his audience - sometimes too much: "One time a critic even said that we should ban Dave St-Pierre from the stage," he recounts, laughing. "I love to stir things up and to get people talking."

>> Arts Listings